Economic and Social History in the Modern and Contemporary Periods

Code:

HISTO041

Acronym:

HESEC1

Instance: 2014/2015 - 1S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of History, Political and International Studies
Course/CS Responsible:	Bachelor in History

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
GEOGR	6	GEOGR - Study Plan	3	-	6	52	162
HISTO	84	HISTO - Study Plan	3	-	6	52	162
LA	16	LA - Study Plan	2	-	6	52	162
			3
LLC	2	Plano Oficial do ano letivo 2013_2014	2	-	6	52	162
LRI	7	Plano Oficial do ano letivo 2013_2014	2	-	6	52	162
			3

Teaching language

English, Français, Español, Italiano

Objectives

At the end of the semester, students should be able to:

1. Realise the need for a scientific analysis of recent History for the understanding of economic and social reality.

2. Organise historically and chronologically the most important stages of the contemporary economic and social history.

3. Characterise the economic as well as the social nature of the capitalistic system.

4. Relate the two world wars and 19th and 20th centuries imperialism with the great crisis of the liberal capitalistic system.

5. Analyse critically, in a written exam, at least two relevant problems of the contemporary economic and social history in the last two-hundred years.

Learning outcomes and competences

1. Realise the need for a scientific analysis of recent History for the understanding of economic and social reality.

2. Organise historically and chronologically the most important stages of the contemporary economic and social history.

3. Characterise the economic as well as the social nature of the capitalistic system.

4. Relate the two world wars and 19th and 20th centuries imperialism with the great crisis of the liberal capitalistic system.

5. Analyse critically, in a written exam, at least two relevant problems of the contemporary economic and social history in the last two-hundred years.

Working method

Presencial

Program

1. INTRODUCTION: an historical perspective on the major changes of the Contemporary Age in demography, social relations, economy, political systems.

 

2. Capitalism and industrial and colonial civilisation (19th and 20th centuries):

2.1 Economic and social fractures in the 18th and 19th centuries: rural flight, urbanisation, industrialism, cultural massification.

2.2 Bourgeois hegemony.

2.3 Working-class movement: resistance and political alternative.

2.4 Contemporary colonialism and imperialism (19th-20th centuries): from occupation to formal decolonisation.

 

3. The great crisis of the capitalist civilisation (1914-45):

3.1 Two world wars: wars of the masses, total wars.

3.2 A Great Depression.

3.3 Social and politicalconfrontation: crisis of liberalism, Soviet Revolution and rising of fascism.

 

4. A social age:

4.1 Change in capitalist systems: Welfare State and mass consumption.

4.2 “Real Socialism”: building up Welfare through an authoritarian modernisation.

4.3 “Revolution!”: opposing capitalism and colonialism, emerging youth, women and Third World.

 

5. “Globalisation”? Of what?: Soviet model implosion, capitalist Welfare State destruction, a North-South deepening gap, neoliberal ideological hegemony, permanent war.

Mandatory literature

Beaud, Michel; História do Capitalismo: de 1500 aos nossos dias, Teorema, 1992

Comments from the literature

Please look for the whole list of Biliography in DOCUMENTS attached to this module webpage!

Teaching methods and learning activities

Theory-practical classes consist of activities that include the presentation of information, sometimes using texts made available to students, usually through multimedia presentations, analysis of written documents, films and pictures, graphs and tables, and open discussion on the issues under study.
As the number of students enrolled amounts to over 120, it becomes clearly impossible for a single teacher (and evaluator) to be able to supervise in Tutorials actual research activities, such as commenting web and/or bibliographic research and/or to prepare a critical review of an essay/book/documentary film. Thus, and giving up of what has been the work for the last 17 years of the teacher now in charge of this module, Tutorial activities will stick to preparation of the final written exam, namely proposing relevant literature, advising on its use and relevance, and analysing and interpreting documents of the kind above mentioned.

keywords

Humanities > History > Economic history
Social sciences > Sociology > Social changes
Humanities > History > Social history
Humanities > History > Contemporary History

Evaluation Type

Evaluation with final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Exame	100,00
Total:	100,00

Eligibility for exams

Having been imposed to the teacher in charge of this module full responsibility over the evaluation of more than 120 students, thus not shared together with any other teacher, it becomes definitely impossible to evaluate any practical research procedure developed by the students. Consequently, approval in this module requires only:

(i) to be present in 75% of the classes, both Theory-practical and Tutorials;

(ii) a minimal mark of 10 (ten) out of 20 at the final written exam.

Calculation formula of final grade

Written exam: 100%

Observations

1. Students may have free access to literature and other study material they may bring along (although not to Internet!) in every written, which implies that exams will focus on the resolution of practical research and historical interpretation problems.
2. Classes will be taught in Portuguese, but English, Français, Español or Italiano may be used as working languages, including in written exams.